Perspectives on the beautiful game of soccer; fueled by enormous amounts of coffee

Monday, January 28, 2008

Quotes from the Celebrity Soccer Challenge

Inspiration: I think I want to get back in shape and play on a team. I haven’t played since my late twenties. I kind of retired, but I think I want to start again – get on a team, get playing again. --Rivers Cuomo

I’m going to go upstairs (to register as a bone marrow donor). That’s the whole point of this. --Alexi Lalas

We watched Dare to Dream on our way here. I wanted my daughter to see the documentary on how they changed women’s soccer and how far it’s come. I got very emotional watching, because I was one of the pioneers out there playing with the boys and not getting to play with women. I quit before there really was organized girls soccer. It’s rewarding to see how far we’ve come and to know I played a small part in people’s acceptance of women as athletes. --Elizabeth Shue

I’m new to the foundation, but I’ve witnessed what was going on today and I was really touched. There’s a lot of heroes out there, a lot of people making a difference. It’s just inspired us all. -Jim Abbott

Extreme extertion: It was fun. I’ll feel muscles tomorrow that I haven’t felt in years. --Eric Braeden

I was having some groin issues, but the game was still fun. --Rivers Cuomo

Transfer? What transfer?: We’re not going to talk about that. We’re here for this. --Brad Guzan on Celtic. Interesting use of the royal "we".

Forget Freddy - Andy is the savior of U.S. Soccer: I dominated, to put it in short. It was like – Landon, Mia, and then me. When you’re as good as me, the play really moves through me. I’m sort of like the Pele man, the John Stockton, Steve Nash as it were, if you were making a basketball to soccer comparison. The Joe Montana, as it were. Who else? I’ll say Muhammad Ali. It’s tough to top. Jordan, maybe? -- Andy Samberg, who is a deceptively tough interview, because I can't keep any questions straight when I'm giggling.

The we're-not-even-playing-on-turf-bewilderment: Actors are very uncoordinated. A few kept falling - I don’t understand. Course, I’d probably fall over in front of the camera. --Pete Vagenas

3 comments:

One of the great things about those mid '90s USWNTs was how they came together for each other. Those early matches to raise awareness, sign up potential donors and raise funds for the Children's Hospital in Milwaukee were great fun and allowed so many young fans to meet their heroes, while their parents learned about what we could do.

The news from England that some exciting breakthroughs may be possible soon brings hope but for now, I urge everybody to stop at http://www.marrow.org/

I don't know why Abby wasn't there - I did ask Alexi what happened to Cobi, who was scheduled to be there. Alexi said he didn't know. Maybe it was like one of those parties where they invite a whole bunch of people and something comes up for a few of them.